CLOSING THE DEAL

Closing the deal is the most important part of the sales process.

Every business is a sales organisation. Selling generates the cashflow that is the very life blood of any business. However, sales is as much an art as it is a process. Here are some top tips to help you to close deals.

·        Personalised approach. These days,customers are savvy and they have access to more data than ever via the internet. Modern, sophisticated customers tend not to want to be sold to.Instead, you should focus on helping them to buy. This is called consultative selling and it works particularly well in a business to business (B2B) situation. Try to understand the customer’s points of pain; what is it that keeps them awake at night and how does your proposed solution address those pain points? Build a personalised approach that builds trust with the customer.

·        Objection handling. Preparation is half the battle and as such, you should prepare for each sales interaction and anticipate potential objections. Every prospect will have objections around things like pricing, availability or how your product / service compares tothat of another business. Do your research and be prepared to discuss how your product / service offers something different to that of your competitors.

·        Know the decision maker. To help close more sales, it is important to know the decision maker. Are you talking to the right person? If not, how do you get to the right person? Inorder to close more deals, you need to get the decision maker in the room / onthe call. As such, it’s important to do your research in order to ensure that you are speaking with the right person on each sales deal.

·        Know when to push. If you feel that the prospect’s questions have been answered and they have an understanding of the solutions that you can provide, you should ask for thesale. This is a critical moment and it’s important to reiterate the solutionthat you are offering in a knowledgeable and confident manner (but remain polite and ensure you don’t come across as pushy or arrogant).

·        Dot the I’s. In terms of next steps, you should finalise any paperwork and provide the customer with the information they need to accept the deal and make their payment arrangements.Keep this straight-forward and user-friendly.

·        Keep them in the pipeline if appropriate. If you are unable to close the deal, set up a follow-up meeting in a month or two so that you can keep nurturing your potential client. However, if the prospect has made clear that they are not interested, it may be time to walk away.

·        Tailor your approach. A final point is to use different sales tactics depending on the situation. For example,if you are approached by a client who has already decided to purchase from your firm, skip ahead and finalise everything in order to get the deal across theline as quickly and efficiently as possible. Likewise, if a prospect isn’t sure what they are looking for, you will need to engage in a consultative sales dialogue.

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